Sunday, November 30, 2014

We, and much of the MMO world have been rocked recently by the new EVE Trailer featuring ingame video set to real time player comms... a trailer that has captured the imagination of new players and set a new fire in the bellies of older vets. I laughed out loud and cheered the first time I watched it, and every time since.

And real life can be just as exciting it seems... Rixx Javix found this video short on Vimeo and shared it and well, it’s quite simply as amazing if not more so than our new EVE trailer, only this one is based on real life
and all I gotta say is… as the EVE Player Trailer beckons to my heart, THIS beckons to my very soul…

Wanderers
is a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific
ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever
happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual
places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where
available.

Without
any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of
the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature
that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds - and above all, how it might
appear to us if we were there.

Erik Wernquist

Let
us pray, that one day, we will once again reach for the stars and get off this
one lone rock...

And
the human race will find adventure, again...

Turamarth Elrandir

Fly Fearless and see you in the Sky =/|)=

PS the title... "Randir" is elvish, the Quenya word for Wanderer...Gandalf was also know as Mithrandir, the Grey Wanderer... and hence my last name, Elrandir... or Star Wanderer. =]

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Back a few months ago I decided to make a pilgrimage most of us,
them as who love the Lore of New Eden that is, eventually make sooner or later…
I travelled to the Eve Gate in the New Eden system. The Eve Gate, if you don’t
know, is the genesis, the birthplace of the human race in New Eden.

~segue…Our genesis story revolves around the Eve Gate, a naturally
occurring wormhole that was discovered by our ancestors back on Earth and they used
it to migrate out from our home system and colonize the rich new systems in the
New Eden cluster… Then, after one hundred years of colonization and trade
between Sol system and the fast growing and rich New Eden systems, the Eve Gate
“…unexpectedly and seemingly unprovoked, collapsed
in an apocalyptic catastrophe of a scale never before witnessed by the human
race, ruining the New Eden system in the process.”

And we were cut off, left in complete isolation.
We regressed and for millennia thousands of the original colonies died off…
only a handful survived. From them grew us, the five major Empires that arose
from the long dead ashes of the Eve Gate Event… the Amarr Empire, the Gallente
Federation, the Caldari State, the Minmatar Republic, and the Jovian Empire,
and a number of smaller independent factions and states.

~end segue…

Back in April I made my own Pilgrimage
to the New Eden system and the Eve Gate for the very first time, to see for
myself the birthplace of humankind in New Eden… It was a moving experience for
me. I am an avid SciFi reader and so the Lore of New Eden calls to my soul… I
take to heart my Matarii roots and the stories and lore that surrounds my
heritage in EVE just as I am also deeply interested in the Lore of Anoikis, my
chosen home in EVE.

Interestingly enough, we who live in Anoikis get to experience EVE
in a very different way than the huddled masses in Empire space… I call it Traveling
without Moving… Every 24 hours at the very most our connections to Empire and
other Anoikis systems changes… Imagine if you lived in Dodixie or Jita and on a
16 to 24 hour cycle all the gates randomly changed their connections… to systems
anywhere in New Eden… anywhere… Hi, Low, NULL or even Anoikis…

For many this would be utter chaos bordering on madness… the disruption
this would cause Empire players would create a Niagara Falls of tears… why Industrialists
alone would cry the Grand Canyon full to its brim! But, for us, the few who are
brave enough, and yes, crazy enough to make our very real homes out in the
black of wormhole space… it is pure excitement.

Everyday bring new Anoikis and often
Null systems to explore and raid, new Lowsec systems to hunt in, new Hisec
systems to trade and shop in… I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to look forward,
with anticipation, to Where Will We Be Today? And in Anoikis fleet comms you
never hear, “Are we there yet?” said in anything other than purest of jest… for
we know full well that our brethren in Null say it all the livelong day and in earnest
too.

This little fact of the Tao of Anoikis impacted my Pilgrimage in
an interesting way… When I set off, our stat lowsec was in Nasesharafa which was
38 hops from the New Eden system… so I used a Maladiction interceptor for the
trip, due to ‘extremely fast’ and ‘immune to bubbles’. When I had finished my
tour of the gate and connecting historical systems I turned for home and found
that our old static had died and was now in Jeni, a mear 14 hops away… LOL.
Gotta love Traveling without Moving!

So yesterday I was on alone early and I did the
scan-down-all-the-things thing… and lo and behold, our new U210 static low was
in Central Point… 2 hops from the New Eden system… well huh…

What the hey... so I trundled on over to the Gate… warped to the BM
I had left on my first visit, the
place where I had dropped a well named Mobile Depot… just like all the cans you see on scan and all with messages from those
who came before.

As I sat there contemplating the gate, life, the
universe and everything… I decided to once again leave my temporary mark as
twere and drop the Depot I had with me… after I named it appropriately I then
decided to leave something else behind.

They have some Spirits and a case of Quafe for mixer… and the
hound, if they get hungry enough… I hear they are a bit gamey but you can get real
hungry out there in the black… ya know?

Friday, November 14, 2014

I have reached my limit, I can’t keep up, I’m simply overwhelmed…
I was writing up a post and in the course of this and that saw that CSM Sugar
Kyle had a new post up, “Test Server Adventures” and Von Keigai also had a new
post, “New Wspace in Rhea” both were different takes and
views on the new space, the 100 new star systems (call em T-Space, S-Space
N-Space or even W-space… just don't call em Anoikis) and on the unique system,‘Thera’. All of these are accessed only via
wormholes and are coming to EVE in Rhea in Dec, from the Dev Blog “Thera
and the Shattered Wormholes”… then tonight I came home ready and excited to
tackle these New Features and devote some time to reading up, then considering and
such then I wanted to get into writing up my reactions and thoughts…

I started reading the Dev Blogs even before I finished Von’s post
and had Sugar’s and Helena’s posts up on my second screen… and I was half way
through the Dev Blogs when I saw that Hermit
(and thanks for the mention man… that was a hard & weird day for me…),
Sugar (AGAIN!!),
Helena (AGAIN!!!)
had even newer posts up... as, it seems, does a majority of the bloggers on my
must read list…

Then it hit me… I was overloaded. I stopped reading, closed all
blog screens and logged onto EVE.

I wanted no moar to do with
ANY reading about any of the NEWEST NEWER NEW STUFF coming in Rhea when I had
not yet finished reading and absorbing all I wanted to on the OLDER NEWEST NEW
STUFF that just came with Phoebe and the OLDEST NEW STUFF that came out with
Crius… It was then that I realized CCP had sneaked in a new mechanic to the
Metgame… “Feature Fatigue.” And I had pushed my timers too far… I needed a cool
down period… and bad.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Night before
last was… well, one of those nights that give you reason to enjoy when things
go right shall we say.

First, my wife had surgery last week. 3rd go ‘round on this particular
operation and the 4th surgery in this exact same site… no matter how you do the
math, this sucks.

So Lady Pain
(I love her and she loves me, but he hates my mistress EVE…) is home and her
convalescence is going well all thing considered, bringing with it the hope of
full recovery. And it, of course, brings with it the caregiving she needs as
she recovers, which I have no issue with… but it is damned hard to go through
for all involved, most especially her.

She is, for the most part resting and recuperating… which means after homework,
dinner, dishes and laundry and other such… I try and have a bit of a sit down
for some me time, which now can, and does, get interrupted, often, very often,
without warning… and I’d better be damn QUICK about answering too… She txts and
expects, perfectly understandably, for me or Boo (dottir) to STOP whatever
I/she/we doing and come right quick… and I do (notice I said “I”do)… but this
can be, well, not good shall we say if one is say flyin Logi inna C5 site or
mebbe, as I was night afore last, running C3 sites solo inna Vargur… or trying
to respond to a ToO… (Target of Opportunity)…

My options are, of course, to simply not DO anything where a sudden txting,
very similar to a DC, can leave everyone hanging… or I can just fly and pray…
guess which I opt for? Yea… I fly man. Now let’s add to this winning formula
for fun that there are simply times when no matter how hard you try, yer gonna
fail. Nights when Bob, the God of Holes, deigns to take notice of you… and in the noticing notices
that things have been going well for you… and decides that that’s simply gotta effin
stop. And one has no choice but to accept the consequences… like this
particular night…

I first logged on TurAdan and spent an inordinate, and yet quiet absorbing,
amount of time working on his Forever-Q™. TurAdan is gonna be a UberScanner.
He’s already inna ‘Stero, albeit a very poorly T1/Meta 4 fit ‘Stero, but skills
are steadily clicking away in his now 80+ day Forever-Q™… I love being able to
work my way down a fit or a role, dropping skills in in order of (1) importance to
the fit/role and (b) by time to level… and then just close the skills screen
and check notifications ervy now and again.

Then logged on as Tur(Amarth) and as usual I wanted to get PI runs out of the way first
and while I am doing PI n shit we are all chatting in TS as usual… Jor is
setting up some PI alts, Sov is scanning somewhere, Tsra is… I dunno, I never know what Tsra is up to… and Endy
is well, being Endy. After PI is done I’m agitating for us to GO SHEEWT something…
anything… so I decide to try out my new Vargur. She is fit as a PocketDread for
soloing C5 sites so C3 sites should be AFKable innit…

So I warp out to a site, where per SOP I am supposed to drop an MTU and BM the
MTU for the Noctisising of the wrecks later. But, I am in my shiney new Vargur
and I put off that step for a little bit as I start in on the site. I wanna try out
Defensive Self-Tackling for a cycle or 2… Bastion Mode ya know… can’t move… be
das bunker in space… but, the C3 Sleepers simply don’t put out the same DPS as
C5 Sleepies do, so I just off Bastion and allow the Hardeners, Giant Repper and
Giant Noses to do they thing… but I am all into my new ship… checking it out
from different angles, F9ing the screen clear and taking pics, etc. all the
while spamming Dscan and keeping up with chat etc.

2nd spawn arrives with Frigates… I turn on the Huge Smartbomb and all the
little nasties nearby start bleeding… scheeet! I figure to speed up the taking
down of them pesky frigs I’ll sick my droans on em too! Uh huh… ‘cept I really
shoulda turned OFF the Huge Smartbomb first… but no, I dint… so I watch as my 5
Hobgob IIs lose all shields, armor and 50% of their hull HP on the first pulse…
<facepalm1>… The Not-so-SmartPilot™ spams the Huge Smartbomb off and
tries to recall droans in time but only gets to watch as the Sleepy frigs make
easy scrap out of the poor near dead things… dear lord save me from myself…

OK, itsa derp, but not too bad, I treat Droans like what they are… smart
bullets… they are expendable to a degree after all and I still have my PvP
backup Droan… a lone Gecko! And that lil monster is a terror! So, dubble
checking the Smartbomb is actually OFF, I launch the Gecko and sick him on the
partially burnt up frigs and joyously watch as they melt afore his awesomeness…

Now I work my way through the site until all are steaming wrecks in the void
and… oops, eems in my haste I fergot to bring the damn MTU… Ok, no prob, Recall
droans! Align and warp back to POS to get an MTU… and… it’s only as I go to
warp that I realized I had not yet BMed the site… <facepalm2>. I watch
the lovely lovely wrecks, holding the approx. 35m ISK worth of Lewts and
Slavage that this site is usually worth, rapidly disappear into the black off
my stern while I am unable to stop my ship nor click a wreck or even open the
places screen and grab a BM in space in time… and, of course, the site has
despawed from the scanner window as I warped out. Oh fuk me.

I land in the POS and silently curse Bob the God of Holes… Well, what do you
expect me to do? curse myself?? I KNOW it was ALL Bobs fault! He’s never liked
me… =\

Anyhoo… I finally buck up and tell the guys… I have to, the wrecks will be on
scan for HOURS and someone will eventually put 2 and 4 together and get = Tur.
They, my guys, my corpies, my good friends… supportive, caring,
decent-to-a-fault guys that they are… of course LOL and rib me mercilessly… =P

Well, it is what it is and there are still sites in the sky and ISK to be made…
So I BM the next site from the scan list (yea I BM everything now), grab an MTU
and 5 new Hobgobs, then I swap out to my trusty ‘stero and head back to the
site cloaked… I land and slowboat to a good spot well inside my Vargur’s range,
make a Pounce BM, head back, reship to the Varg and head back out… And this
time I do it by the numbers… Warp to the Pounce, drop MTU on the pounce,
(dubblecheck that damned Huge Smartbomb is OFF) launch droans and start in on
the site… NOW I feel confident this time things will go as they should… yea
right.

So I kill
the last Sleeper cruiser while scooping the lewts and MTU and recalling droans…
I’m eager for the Pew Pew but disappointed at the same time… I just HATES
leavin ISKies sittin in the sky but, !!PVP!!

So I warp to POS, ask what to wear, “Dictor.” Sov replies, so I jump into one of my Sabres
and warp to the outbound hole. Sov is scout, NC1M in on the hole and Tsra joins
up… Sov gets us a warp in and calls “Jump, Jump! Warp to Sov, warp to Sov.” We
jump and as we enter warp Sov calls out… “Crap! sleepers just spawned, Ventureswarping out, everyone warp out on landing.” “Crap.”

I land, hit the warp-to for the return hole, my ship turns and starts accelleratingand a bubble goes up...
WhatTehFuk??? Sov, “Tur, you bubbled!” I look down and realize I had moved the
mouse back down to the hub controls… and had inadvertently hit the bubbler…
<facepalm3> oh godsdamnit!!! I turn on def and prop mods and try and burn
out of the bubble knowing it is futile… having popped the bubble I am at the
center and trapped with 2 Sleeper BSes… so it’s just a matter of time… and very
little of that ‘til… Boom. Fuk… fuk fuk fuk fuk fuk fuk… I warp my POD out thru
the hole and back to the POS.

I sit idly… thinking over the last few hours… and I realize, three strikes, yer
out.

<facepalm1> Smartbomb my own droans…

<facepalm2>
warp out of a completed yet unbookmarked site…

<facepalm3>
bubble myself and get killed by Sleepers…

And not once… not even once did anything untoward happen due to what I had
feared most, my wife calling me away. Nope, this night’s derping was mine and
mine alone. I don’t rage, I don’t whine and I don’t cry… I simply thank
everyone, say goodnight, log off and go to bed…

Mebbe tomorrow Bob will have mercy on me… mebbe not... Bob’s an ass that way.
=\

Thursday, November 6, 2014

OK this sucks… I JUST posted
my Phoebeness Post and minutes later found myself reading Kirith Kodachi’s
post, “Welcome
to Thera” … Damn, damn damn damn… now I have NO CHOICE but to immediately
write about this… =\

I am a wormholer, and all
things Anoikis are near and dear to my skeevy heart… and it seems CCP Fozzie
dropped a bit of an Anoikis Bomb of a reveal in today’s 2nd Episode of the “o7”
Show.

If you want to watch the
whole thing, which I HIGHLY recommend you do, hit the link above but then
immediately skip forward to 07:15… for some reason CCP has over SEVEN minutes
of… nuthin but splash screen… they just don’t seem able to edit out. =\ Ah
hem…

OK on to the why I am posting
a 2nd post just 2 hours after my last you ask? “Thera” is why, the First
NAMED Anoikis Star System… an Anoikis system with NPC Stations… yup, STATIONS
with an S… OMG.

OK you has linky to video, so
Ima not go into much detail, I will however synopsize the most pertinent reveals
below… To put it simply, (1) When you are podded, no moar skill loss, no moar upgrading clones and (2) New
Space and New Systems in Anoikis…

“Thera will be the biggest system we
have ever added to EVE” -CCP Fozzie

The “o7” Show 2nd
Episode reveals synopsis:

CCP Terminus on what’s coming
in Rhea

Time stamp: 20:15 – 23:00

Clones step 1:

No skill loss/no moar clone grades/implant
loss ONLY

This was done for primarily
for Vets but has benefits for New Bros too…

No Hints about step 2 etc.

Anoikis Stuff:

CCP Fozzie on what’s coming in
Rhea

Time stamp: 32:35 – 40:00

Moar New Space… a COLLECTION
of new Wormhole Systems

CCP Fozzie Highlighted an
Anoikis system called “Thera” (watch for this to be rolled out NEXT WEEK on
Sisi…)

Thera is the first ‘named’
Anoikis system with Multiple Full Service NCP Stations. Thera is a very old Anoikis
system, we are just discovering it now. Thera is deeply tied to the Anoikis/Empires lore-storyline…
watch for new lore-storyline stuff to be coming out daily...

Details:

Thera will be in a new 5th
type of space/no POSes/No Local/-1.0 sec/will have Sleeper Sites/most connections
including statics will be to K-space/no statics to W-space/no Capitols allowed
in/cannot build Capitols inside/unique system weather/new sun/newbula/a really Gigantic
System/Stations very very far apart/largest system ever added/Landmark Sites
everywhere…

Thera will be ‘Traveling
Without Moving for Stations’… a Dark Jita without CONCORD…

Ima segue a bit…So my NEW JOB (…some of you who
follow this know that I have been employment challenged for some time now… 7
months to be exact. Plain drove me outta EVE even it did it did. Well I finally landed
not just a job... not just another contract... but a full time position… and from an ad on Craigslist FFS… LOL! I
have been an IT Contractor for 17 years, and for at least 7 of those I have
increasingly wanted to break out of contracting… so Yay me!) …

So my new job has hours that I really like, 9 to 6. You see I am not a morning
person, I would actually like to get all medieval on them as do bounce outta
bed at the crack o dawn with a song in dey hearts and a smile on dey lips…
effin weirdos… Now don’t misunderstand me, I still have my alarm set to 6AM
like so many do, but then it’s set for 6:30, then 6:45 then 6:55 and so on… and
like many I nudge my 11 y.o. dottir awake at 6:30… then at 6:45 then at 6:55
and so on… =P (she is no moar a morning person than I am, we get along that
way…).

The point being that I have to have Boo (dottir) at the bus stop… (4/10ths of a
mile away, at the end of our driveway, you know... just outside the Force Field...) by 7:30A at the very latest… leaving me
with a full hour and a half to leisurelymeander down the 30 minute of light traffic back roads it takes me to get to work
sooooo I am ALWAYS early! Schweet! (Understand this has not always been the standard for
me TBH)… and no, I do not even for one picosecond consider the option of going back up that
driveway and back into the house until much moar reasonable 8:15ish… oh noes… that would only lead
to me waking up, dried sticky drool caked into the keyboard imprint on my face, and calling
my boss to tell him what he already knows… that I’m late… again. Nope,
circumstances’ forcing me to be early to work inna way I can deal with is a dream
come true.

So on the Tuesday the 4ththings went as usual… I was hoping against
hope, and experience, to actually get up ‘early’ enough to d-load and at least
get a look at Phoebe… yea, right… the bed was, as my dottir says… just too
warmy warm. Anyhoo the downside to my new schedule is I dunt get home till 6:30
at the very earliest and moar like 7ish most days now… so I dint get to
experience all the Phoebeness until nearly 8PM! Oh well… so it goes. =[

But I digress…

So there I was at 8 in the evening playing
catch up with the better part of the playerbase… the client d-loads the
patchspansion and it takes no more than the expected time, good good… then it
applies the patchspansion, again in good time… and I log on…

And I am amazed. The first thing I noticed is
the new HUD and the Compass and BOOKMARKS INNNN SPAAAAAAACE… Whatta concept!
Whatta REALITY!!! OK, you may just possibly have the impression I am just a wee
bit overjoyed with BMs in Space… and if not, well lemme tell you, I am! I zoom
out from the POS and ALL of my pounces and safes are right there!! OMG I can
finally SEE how they relate to each other and the POS… How truly wonderful… and
after fiddling around a bit I find this…

As you can see in the first pic, by default
‘All the Things’ are shown in space…

But I don’t LIKE ‘All the Things’… especially the Gods Damned Sigs and Anoms.
Ever since CCP decided to remove the Mystery from Scanning and Probing and give
us all Large Neon Colored Signs in Space showing us EXACTLY where all the
“Hidden Stuff” is I have hated that aspect of the OV. I actually spend quite a
bit of time quietly hating on the Discovery Scanner every time it sweeps across
my screen and reveals everything… and I hate the Large Neon Colored Signs
designating where every Signature and Anom in my systems is… and wishing I
could turn it OFF… what crap.

But if you right-click on the Compass itself, you get the Sensor Overlay popup…
which allows you to ‘choose’ what you want to see in space… oh my, this is the
dreamy goodness I have so longed for. (…and yes yes yes, I know all of this is
in the Dev Blog… but it bears repeating!!)

You can turn off each item separately by
simply clicking on it or,

Click on the All Seeing Eye and shut it ALL
off, including the Discover Scanner Sweep...

Voilà!

OK on to USING the BMs In Space… Yup, all I
could have ever wanted. The ability to SEE the relationship of your BMs to the
‘verse is simply too good to be true. We who live in Anoikis
(Anoikisians, Anoikians, Anoikii?) live by the Cloak and BMs moar than anyone
else in EVE. And when yer ship is cloaked and you are using BMs to get a pounce
or position yourself for the slaughter… erm, umm, I mean to DEFEND our homes
this is one of the greatest tools CCP has ever bestowed upon us… and being able
to reach out, click and warpto… OMFG

I found at full zoom out, you can even see
your off grid BMs and their relationship to the POS and each other… I know a
lot of players use Tacs, Pounces and multiple safes etc. … but unless you live
in holes and fly ‘round ALLATIME in cloakies (until they need to be sterilized
from the pod funk) you cannot imagine what a bag full of win this is for us!

I spent so much time playing with and rethinking my Tac, Pounce and PI BMs and
such that I lost track of time… I had wanted to pop out and play with the
Multisell and such, but the hour was late and so I turned my attention next to
the Forever-Q™ Skill Queue…

I was flummoxed. I had longed for this for years but with one thing and another
I had never really worked out exactly what it would mean… how much simpler it
was when you only had to plan for 23+ hours and just pop in a long skill when
you knew you weren’t going to be able to log on for a while. I need to do some
research so I decided to just loaded up everything I had less than a day or 2
to skill and then popped in all the L4 and L5s I needed for Command Ships… 65d
16h etc… again CCP, OMFG!

I have touched on only 2 of the changes to come our way with Phoebe… and I feel
like I am playing a new game… I can’t wait to see what emergent behaviors are
to come of these changes and what CCP has up its rolled up and ready for a
fight sleeves with Rhea and whatever comes next...

I am moar excited for us and for the game than I have been since I first
undocked into the cold hard black of New Eden four long years ago… and I do
believe I had the same grin on my face then, as I did last night. =]

With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now
out, and more of CCP Seagull's vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold
roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term
to see it through.

Long term, what do you see as the measurable
signs that will tell us that they've succeed?

What do you see as the outcome that we'll see
as players?

Is it concurrent player count or something
else?

Get writing!

===================================================

You have been weighed.

You have been measured.

And you have absolutely...

Been found wanting.

Welcome to New World. God save you, if it is
right that he should do so.

This Blog Banter landed in my
mailbox as I was reading the Minutes of the 2014 CSM Summer Summit which I had found the link to over on Aggressive Logistics. In that post CCP Seagull is quoted and I
immediately looked it up in the Minutes… the quote is located in the ‘Veteran
Player Retention’ section (in the PDF, pg 120)…

It starts with Sion Kumitomo -“I recognize the cultural blow that incarna
was. The risks that you take by being more risky. I understand that there are
real legitimate concerns now.”

CCP Seagull – “For the record. This was so many years ago
and we have done so much work to reach now. I, as the executive producer, am
in a risk taking mode. But, in the new way that we work. Not just random
things. We need to be bolder. We should be able to get over our trauma of
Incarna. We need to own our game and be courageous with it. I think our players
want that of us.”

Örvar Halldórsson – “We feel excited but also mildly terrified
every release. We don’t try to break things or let things out of hand. But,
leaving them open ended means in the long run we don’t know the
unpredictability of what people may do. That has to be an accepted thing. It is
an exciting thing. But, we cannot be in too much control. We can’t keep it safe
because it gets boring.”

CCP Seagull - - It's time to get over incarna and start
taking risks again, educated and calculated risks of course, but we need to
make sure that we deliver solid content to veteran players. We have trained
players to be afraid of us doing big things. It meant we put something big out
that was half done and it never got touched again. Us doing something big, such
as industry, means CCP is going to mess it up again and we will have to pick up
the mess. We, internally, have become scared in a sense of making bolder
changes to the game so that we know we can control the outcome. Because we do
not want to be perceived as messing up again. We can predict what is going on.
That predictability is boring everyone to death now. We need to challenge
and move forward with solid plans owned by teams that are building the vision
in their hands. We need to turn up the volume.

OMG THIS.

Now, what will the fallout be?
Will players who’s gameplay turns on Jump capable ships, who are deeply
invested in the mechanics of pre-Phoebe Force Projection and Logistics unsub in
droves? Will Cyno alts, Lo and Nullsec Industrial, Capitol and Titan pilot char
owners vote against the changes with their RW wallets?

Will das mittens quietly
ping the CFC… “Everyone unsub for a month
or two and CCP will learn to do as their told… or else.”…
ugly picture that.

I don’t believe so and personally
I, and I believe a majority of the playerbase... even Goons, will keep the faith with CCP
and with CCP Seagull’s determination, vision and her belief in US. She answered
to this point, unsubs due to changes, quite directly at EVE Vegas. CSM Sugar
Kyle posted the minutes she herself
took at the Eve Vegas 2014 - Ship and Module Round Table with CCP Seagull & CCP Manifest. CCP
Seagull was directly asked about one type of potential lost subs due to the coming
Phoebe Jump changes…

A: We absolutely expect there to be a
reduction due to cyno accounts. We think that the balance this change is
bringing will be good and bring other people to the game or back that will
compensate.

And she very pointedly responds
to this entitled Nulltroll (in the comments Sugar says she was pretty sure the
inquirer was in PL)…

Q: …Some changes seem made to stop emergent
game play which seems against the sandbox. If a group oppressively dominates,
the sandbox should allow that but you are making changes to stop that.

A: When we add things into Eve it is a form
of behavior shaping. Our responsibility is to make a rule set and a
landscape that makes it as good a game as it can be for many people. If the
environment is unbalanced it is our responsibility to try to correct the flaws
or change them and not be afraid because they have always been broken.
It is not a simple system. We have avoided changes for fear that changes are
bad. But we want an interesting and viability world for as many people as
possible so we have to make things change even if some things won't be liked.

This harks directly to her above
statements that “…it’s time to get over
incarna and start taking risks again.” CCP is no longer afraid of us, ‘bout
fukkin time.

Long term, what do you see as the measurable
signs that will tell us that they've succeed? …concurrent player count or
something else?

Long term signs CCP is succeeding
in the new paradigm of RW Risk vs Reward will of course be increased player
activity (PCU) and over time, hopefully the sub levels will not only bounce
back but start to increase once again. But it will also be in the…

…outcome that we'll see as players?

For me and my mates, the answer
will be increased excitement and more enjoyable gameplay… more things to DO.
Players having to figure things out once again… challenges and obstacles to
overcome, riches to be won and lost, opportunities taken and missed… New
players in space, new stories, new wars, new maps as new lines are established…
a reinvigorated, almost New, Game… almost.

I did this once… let’s see if
lighting can strike twice…

******

Dear CCP Seagull,

In the Minutes also in ‘Veteran
Player Retention’ section this is stated…

CCP Seagull - Do we care about the veterans? Yes we do. It
is on the agenda in a way it has not been in many years.

CCP Rise - After a long period of neglect around and post Incarna we need to look
at more game health, maintenance and balance. Our attitude is moving from the
best way to take care of veterans being just game health is to include game
health and also look at newer and bigger things to add to what people can do
in Eve. Stuff like the sov discussion is part of that. Things like star
gates are part of that.

CCP Seagull, do you mean this? Do
you really mean it? Then you HAVE to take a hard look why Incarna failed…
Take a fresh look at the promise that was Walking In Stations.

The failure of Incarna was not
that players didn’t want Avatars… yes, some didn’t, but many did… very many, and
I feel MOST would have been very interested in FP Avatar gameplay had there just
been CONTENT to USE the new Avatars IN. THAT was the only failure of Incarna…
no content.

CCP Seagull, do you want new
players? Do you want old players to resub? Do you want to really change the
face of EVE? Let us OUT OF OUR SHIPS!!! Open the gods damned DOOR and I believe
in my heart you will be AMAZED at the flood of new players… Give us a NEW WAY
to play EVE… one CCP once failed at.

Goddamit I want my friend back… here is part of why
he left, “A huge moment for me was
Incarna.I actually thought Incarna
should have been the start of something great…” and it could have been… it
should have been this.

Come on, CCP Seagull, make the
dream come true, show us CCP really wants to open EVE up, to create NEW CONTENT
and give us NEW THINGS TO DO… show us CCP really can deliver on its promises.

Them as what follow me...

Graphiti...

Round and round we go...

Fav Post Bytes...

"Maybe we're not that different after all and I have my own reality to get to grips with."Absence of Substance

Now THAT is wisdom...

We are, each and alone, the absolute center of our subjective 'verse... this is the way of life.To see another's POV as if it were your own... this is the way of truth...To allow that some others have POVs you cannot and will never understand, and yet accept them as they are, this is the way of acceptance...To kill them all without rancor or anger, but in brotherhood... this is the way of EVE.

This Is What We DO!!!

POD Locked

We're Soooo Bad at Hisec!

New Odysseyt Wormhole Jump Animations

EVE Forever, the Second Decade

EVE Easter Egg

Quafe's The One

Negato:

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